I know i'm way behind on the times, but was absolutely shocked to see how Imane Merga just blew away the competition with his incredible sprint and realized Renato Canova was his coach. How did you manage to develop his kick and his endurance to win the race? And i've really never heard of Imane Merga, who is he exactly?

douglas burke

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/24/2011 8:40PM - in reply to Lone Guy

Imane Merga is a very nice person, still very young not only as age, but also as athletic activity.

He was already 4th in World Championsips in Berlin in 10000m.

At that time I was not his coach. He asked me to follow him last year, at the beginning of April, in Dongio (Switzerland) where I wenr for a competition together with Moses Mosop and Richard Mateelong.

I found the guy very clever, motivated and with good education. He is one of the few Ethiopian speaking a basic good English, and also is able to read English very well.

Imane Merga is under the management of Gianni Demadonna, the Italian manager that for the first time introduced me in Kenya in 1998, when I was the Technical Scientific Director of the Italian federation.

When we spoke together, we decided to have a particular eye for the new Diamond League. Because for being competitive in that League the athletes need to compete in the same event 7 times, and in 2010 there were no Championships, we cancelled every other competition from his calendar, apart African Championships in Nairobi at the end of July, that in any case never could produce top results, because Imane never was able to run very well in high altitude.

The new workouts in his training were :

a) More use of sprints uphillb) More mileagec) More modulationd) Introduction of long intervals on track, and of mixed intervals for increasing the final sprint in a situation of high accumulation of lactate

The second point was that we worked for having a top shape in 3 different period (coincident with his victories in some meeting of Diamond League), and for trying to be at 90% of his shape during the other meetings.

Personally I already had a similar experience in 1999, when Christopher Koskei was the only gold medal of Kenya in WCh, and I had to manage 11 competitions of 3000m steeple during the last 41 days before WCh.

Imane, and his management, followed all the project, and he won Diamond League in 5000m.

About this year, I motivated Imane and who follows him in Ethiopia (Gemedu) in trying Cross Country, that never saw him in good shape.

Imane is not able running fast when a cross is muddy. I explained that this year the course was like a track : perfect grass, very good weather (end of March in Punta Umbria is spring), and, last but not least, the absence of Bekele and Wilson Kiprop, that could give more opportunity of winning. The real problem was to qualify during Ethiopian Trials, because his difficulty in running in altitude. But the current field of Ethiopian runners, interested in cross, is not very strong, so at the end Imane was second behind Mesfin.

He showed also good personality, explaining during the Ethiopian training camp that wanted to follow his own program, and, because he was the athlete with more chances, he was allowed to do this by the Technical Director, Dube Jillo.

When I said "I don't believe in Ethiopian", this was my opinion about the strength of the team, of course not the opinion about an athlete I coach. Let me have some little pretactic...But, at the end, my impression was right. The Ethiopian team at the moment is not strong. You can't lose Bekele, Sihine, Gebremariam in senior men race, and Dibaba, Defar, Ejigu in senior women race, without paying with Kenya, putting all their best women, and a very compact team for men.Honestly, I knew the strength of Imane, but I supposed he could have few chances to beat the Geoffrey Mutai we saw in Trials. Of course, supposing the shape of Mutai was the same of Trials, Kenya had to chose him as leader, and to work for him, putting some of the athletes in front at very fast pace. The only way, for a strong marathon runner, to beat an athlete with very fast finish as Imane Merga, is to destroy him on the pace, starting immediately running very fast.Till now, Imane has better credentials in 5000m than in 10000m, and we have still to work a lot for increasing his long endurance.Instead, the race was not too fast during the first 8 km, and this fact reduced the chances of Geoffrey, of course not able to finish last 400m in 53" like Merga can do.No problem with the other guys, I knew Imane was stronger than Paul Tanui, Kisorio, Chepkok. The real danger for him was Geoffrey only.And, in any case, till now Imane Merga is the only Ethiopian I coach, because I need to speak directly with the athletes, and I cant coach somebody that doesn't understand me, and I don't understand him.

Freddy P

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 2:58AM - in reply to Lone Guy

Actually the other poster was right: every time some new runner emerges, rest assured Renato will make claim to being his coach. I know Renato has a LOT of you drinking the kool-aid, but I'm not buying it and appreciate the fact that there are others that feel the same way. Are you guys forgetting how notorious the Italian coaches and federation were for doping in the late 80's and virtually all of the 90's? Are you guys forgetting how at one point the Fila Kenyans (coached by Italian Dr. Rosa) DOMINATED the world and suddenly collapsed without a trace?

These "coaches" are not developing these Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes. They are simply finding them, cherry picking the top runner, and making a financial killing off the backs of other's work. It's disrespectful to the Ethiopian and Kenyan coaches. But if their federations are that naive to allow their athletes to be exploited by coaches like Renato and the next European "Technical Scientific Director"/physician, this (pervasive exploitation, lies, and deceit) will continue. As MANY others have pointed out: if he is such a great coach, take one of those white guys to World Cross and repeat what you so-called did with Merga. Until then, all of you blind followers continuing supporting this fraud.

rekrunner

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 4:08AM - in reply to bandwagoning ftw

rekrunner wrote:Do you have any links to facts, or should we all be swayed by how you feel?

What kind of facts do you need or want? I don't have any links and won't bother searching for any to be honest. I'm just expressing my concerns and thoughts like every other poster on this board. Again, we can definitely agree to disagree. I'm certainly okay with that. But this imposter of a great "coach" will soon be exposed. Believe it or choose to be misled: he IS NOT admired by most East Africans, particularly the federations. And he definitely isn't high on the list of most-liked in his home country either. He knows that. He lies, fabricates, steals, and systematically exploits these runners for his own fame, wealth, and success. He is and has nothing without the African runners.

trollism

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 7:18AM - in reply to bandwagoning ftw

I don't care about opinions. If you give facts, then the issue of agreeing or disagreeing doesn't even come up. You can't disagree with facts.

What I need: for each opinion you give, couple it with a related and supporting fact. Or else it doesn't count. That's how anonymous forums work. For example, you say he lies. What did he lie about? You claimed Italians and Dr. Rosa doped. Tellingly, you didn't say Renato did these things. You hint he didn't coach Merga. Did he misstate his role? Who coaches Merga? Did Renato ever claim to coach someone he really didn't? He exploits athletes for money wealth or fame. How is that different than any coach. Some Kenyans and the federation don't like him. Wow! So what? Some Kenyans do like him. Sounds like any normal successful coach. The Kenyan federation seems dysfunctional anyway.

Under Ultra

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 8:46AM - in reply to rekrunner

It's simple, guys. Next time you line up against Merga, just ask him. He speaks perfect English.

Canova is the modern day coach, writing schedules for several world class athletes and trusting that they follow the basic architecture of the plan. Is he with them supervising every workout? No, just like my coach is not.

J.0.

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 10:45AM - in reply to bandwagoning ftw

imane merga said on the iaaf.org article on him after he won world xc that he wants to run a fast 10k on the track, but said it is hard to find fast 10k races anywhere in the world now, just a suggestion he could run the payton jordan track 10k on may 1st at stanford, solinsky ran 26:59 to win last year so that might be a good 10k for him to get a fast time.

jjjjjjj

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 11:51AM - in reply to True Story

some of you seem perfectly willing to drive away the only world class coach that still posts on the boards. where else would we get these great schedules and comments on these great athletes? We don't even get close to that specificity on their training from any of our American athletes or the very oft quoted Salazar, let alone anything from Schumacher or much from Mahon. Thanks, Renato for everything you bring to the boards.

douglas burke

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 11:54AM - in reply to True Story

True Story wrote:Renato is coaching these fast African guys. So why is it that no shoe companies or US-based running teams have asked for his help - for US runners - recently?

He knows enough English to get by, I would think.

We need to get Renato on our side instead of Kenyan/Ethiopian's side.

there are no sides, a coach is a teacher who helps whoever he coaches to work on being the best he/she can be.

most of the good americans have been going to salazar and schumaker lately, but they can be coached by whoever they want to be it canova, toloso kotu whoever they want, they just have to ask. one problem with american runners getting foreign coaches besides the language barrier is that most of our young up and coming runners like elliott heath, brett gotcher, chris derrick, german fernandez, jason lehmkuhle, nick arciniega etc. know who salazar, schumaker, hansons etc. are but may not know who canova is so they ask coaches they have heard of to coach them.

bugless dirk

RE: Renato Canova, Who exactly is Imane Merga and how did you develop him to get his win at World XC?3/25/2011 12:09PM - in reply to douglas burke

douglas burke wrote:most of our young up and coming runners like elliott heath, brett gotcher, chris derrick, german fernandez, jason lehmkuhle, nick arciniega etc. know who salazar, schumaker, hansons etc. are but may not know who canova is so they ask coaches they have heard of to coach them.

Ah, the 33-year-old up-and-comer Lehmkuhle. Watch out for him in the 2016 trials!

The idea that these guys aren't being coached by Canova because they haven't heard of him is silly.